Emetophobia – the Secret Phobia
Emetophobia can affect your whole life, yet most emetophobes don’t tell their friends, a lot don’t even tell close family members. This is why it’s been coined the secret phobia. So why do emetophobes find it so hard to open up to non-sufferers? Emetophobia – the Secret Phobia
- Talking about it is an anxious experience: The other person might ask questions that involve thinking and talking about what is feared
- Control: Control motivates a lot of decisions. Emetophobes don’t trust easily and don’t like sharing personal information: to open up to someone feels like letting go of some control
- Social anxiety: A fear of being judged. The sufferer can’t be in control of what the other person will think
- Not being understood: Emetophobes might have opened up to people in the past and their fears and experiences were downplayed and belittled e.g. ‘being sick isn’t that scary’ ‘no one LIKES being sick’ ?? Stressful, upsetting and frustrating not being heard
- Perfectionism: Perfectionism means many emetophobes don’t feel good enough and are their own harshest critic; beating themselves up for having this fear in the first place and projecting this judgement onto how others will view them. There’s also a need to be seen as ‘perfect,’ calm and in control
- Unease that the other person could use the information against the sufferer: For example they might intentionally test them or make a joke about vomit…or, the opposite, try too hard to be ‘helpful’… i.e. hiding information in order to ‘protect’ the sufferer, for example not sharing that they’d been sick that day
- It’s a way of controlling exposure to more stress and anxiety: Emetophobes are only just managing to keep a lid on their emotions, so dealing with the uncertainties of someone else having knowledge of their phobia is just a whole other layer of stress and exhaustion
Have you had experience of opening up to people about your phobia? Do you have some trusted people who know about it? Let us know!
Please get in touch for more information on how to overcome your emetophobia and social anxiety – we can discuss your needs and refer you to one of our brilliant Coaches!